There is no excuse for anyone making threats against the McCanns. There is already a law against it and people, threatening to 'get' them with nasty 'I know where you live and I'm coming for you' online mail deserve to be prosecuted.

Trouble is several things are being confused and conflated. Disagreement with the official line on the case and objecting to the way the investigation into Madeleine's disappearance is being handled, or paid for, or complaining about other hypotheses than abduction for her being missing not being properly considered, and chewing them over in discussion online are completely fair!!! They have NOTHING to do with 'hate' for Madeleine's parents at all! Disagreement and fair discussion is being lumped together with threatening behaviour! (I don't know about Twitter or Facebook as I'm not a member of either) It seems decently moderateddiscussion forums may be getting tarred with the same brush!

Maybe someone will put me right on this... I thought a troll was someone who, just for the hell of it, disrupted an online discussion thread and tried to cause trouble between other posters. It seems it now means someone making threats!

The idiots who posted vile stuff attacking Caroline wossname, a feminist writer who merely wanted to get a woman's picture rather than yet another man's onto the back of a pound note, was plagued by people threatening to kill her in various nasty ways. They were referred to as trolls in Sky's debate. Anyway, the law dealt with them. Why didn't they challenge her arguments rather than say they were going to cut her throat or whatever. Perhaps they couldn't do so as they had room temperature IQs as do many who resort to violence or threaten it. Trolls is now the word for such people, obviously.

My worry is that the legitimate stopping of and prosecuting people who threaten others, is somehow being linked to disagreement and discussion... the curtailment of reasoned free speech, indeed... on websites and forums.

Wikipedia wrote:In Internet slang, a troll (/ˈtroʊl/, /ˈtrɒl/) is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people,[1] by posting inflammatory,[2] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response[3] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.[4]

This sense of the word troll and its associated verb trolling are associated with Internet discourse, but have been used more widely. Media attention in recent years has equated trolling with online harassment. For example, mass media has used troll to describe "a person who defaces Internet tribute sites with the aim of causing grief to families."[5][6]

I can't see where it says "a troll is a person who has a difference of opinion, or questions another person's version of events".

And when asked how did he get a name and address from a anonymous twitter user..he said 'legal journalistic way' or something...just like Brooks and Coulson didn't know that phone hacking is illegal...journo La-La-Land or just plain lies?

kitti wrote:I would like to know what was said when she invited him in...hope she taped it.

Why did they pick a well educated women with a nice car and home instead off all the nasty trolls they could off picked on from a less well off area

I wouldn't be so sure they picked on her deliberately; that they already knew what class of woman she was, but class shouldn't come into it anyway, should it? But it is all the more shocking, to some people perhaps, that a well dressed, well groomed woman in a nice area should be spending her time doing this. I have no idea the type of things she has tweeted so cannot comment but she doesn't immediately strike me as a vindictive type of person. Have any of her tweets been made public in the past? She now has to hold her head up amongst her neighbours and friends, now that she has been 'outed'.

I have a problem with outing people in this way. It seems to be a trend on TV. Catch people by surprise in the street and confront them in public. Push a camera into their faces so everyone knows who they are. If a TV journalist has got information about someone, take it to the Police or take them to Court yourself, even if its a Civil Court; it must cost almost as much to expose them on TV, but I guess at the end of the day it makes for good TV ratings.

I was always told to do things in private - take people to one side rather than show them up in front of a crowd. Has it been proven she has committed any sort of a crime yet? Its trial by TV, it gives TV too much power and I am not comfortable with it.

Not long ago there was discussion about whether the McCanns would emigrate before the twins reach high school. I've been thinking perhaps they will use the dangerous trolls as the reason they 'have' to leave the country.